A Spatial Database for South Asia
This database brings together data from censuses, surveys, satellite imagery and crowd-sourcing
Abstract
This working paper explains how the Office of the Chief Economist for South Asia at the World Bank developed a Spatial Database for the South Asia region. The database fills an important knowledge gap in the region, which is undergoing an extraordinary spatial transformation as its cities add an anticipated 315 million new residents by 2030.
Many urban planners and scholars in South Asia have embraced geo-referencing data and using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to manage, interpret and present data, and there have been multiple initiatives in this area. However, efforts so far remain partial in their data coverage and disconnected from each other.
The new spatial database brings together, in a single platform, data from censuses, surveys, administrative records, satellite imagery, and crowd-sourcing. It spans 4 administrative levels, from state or province to ward or village. Indicators are organized around a dozen themes – such as urban extent, jobs, education, and infrastructure – at 2 points in time (2001 and 2011). Users can build their own maps for every indicator, access information on the source and features of the data, run comparisons across places and over time, and download indicators and boundaries.
This paper is an output of the Research on Growth and Urbanisation in Low Income Countries programme
Citation
Yue Li, Martin Rama, Virgilio Galdo and Maria Florencia Pinto. (2016) A Spatial Database for South Asia. World Bank, Washington, DC.